Signs of compassion fatigue include21 • checking out, emotionally—faking empathy when you know you’re supposed to feel it, because you can’t feel the real thing anymore; • minimizing or dismissing suffering that isn’t the most extreme—“It’s not slavery/genocide/child rape/nuclear war, so quit complaining”; • feeling helpless, hopeless, or powerless, while also feeling personally responsible for doing more; and • staying in a bad situation, whether a workplace or a relationship, out of a sense of grandiosity—“If I don’t do it, no one will.”
